Fitness Clubs Essay

fitness facilities in New York City. One of these will be a Bally's and the other a YMCA. The two clubs and their programs will be subject to comparison.

One of the signature elements of Bally's is that it has a customized fitness plan option, something that is common throughout all Bally's in the chain. This plan takes information about you and your fitness goals, and then seeks to determine an optimal plan for you. The plan can encompass a wide range of programs -- it essentially serves as the basis for a new customer to have a formal structure to their workouts. In this, Bally's seeks to gain some measure of competitive advantage by taking an active role in working with the customer to ensure that the customer is able to meet their fitness goals.

Bally's offers the standard amenities of a modern fitness club, including a large room of cardio equipment, free weights, and space for classes. The fitness trainers are accessible in particular when you work with Ballys on a fitness plan. The personal trainers are trained in motivation as well as fitness, and they come with added cost. The facility offers a number of different classes, intended to provide a high level of diversification in exercise forms. Pilates, yoga, kickboxing and more are offered in order to give a wide range of choices, to suit all different fitness tastes and objectives.

Membership is available at Ballys in a number of forms, so that people can try before they buy, or can come to Ballys even as a temporary visitor to New York. But overall, the facility was sort of small and stuffy -- not that important from an exercise standpoint but maybe from an aesthetic point-of-view. The personal trainers seemed competent and willing to work within the framework of your fitness plan, but you did not need to have a trainer in order to join or to work out there.

The other gym I tested out was the YMCA. The YMCA has a wide range of community programs, not just exercise, so in that it is more like a community center than just happens to have fitness facilities. I am not sure if this is bad for the vibe in there, since there seemed to be some segregation between people who were there for the workouts and those who were there for other purposes. The YMCA again has the fairly standard fitness facilities, in seeming abundance. It also offers personal trainers to help you with your fitness goals, but does not have a formalized plan like Bally's has.

There are a number of programs available at the facility as well. These include pilates courses and yoga, but there are also…